Looking Back On Our Summer

Well, here we are at the end of another summer, and I thought I'd take a few minutes just to recap some of the highlights and look forward to what lies ahead.

As most of you probably know, we are living out in Philly during the school year while I pursue a masters degree at Westminster Theological Seminary. At this point, it's 3 years down, 1 to go, which means that I should finish some 9 months from now in May 2006.

That reality is exciting, sad, and scary:

• exciting because it'll be great to be done, to move on with life and finish this fascinating vocational transition from software development to spiritual development;
  
• sad because we will be leaving many dear friends behind as we all move our separate directions (indeed many already have);
  
• scary because there is an awful lot of work left to do between now and then - not only do I need to keep up with classes and work, but I also need to start studying for ordination in April, and there is still a lot of ground work to be laid for a church plant that will follow graduation.

Speaking of church planting, we are happy to report positive developments on that end of things as well. Many of you know that we spent a week at the beginning of the summer down in Atlanta at our denomination's "church planting assessment center."

Evidently, all their freakometers were on the blink, because not only did we pass, but one of the assessors there - Terry Traylor, a seasoned church planter who just took a pastoral call here in Philly - asked to mentor us this coming year. So either they liked us or felt we needed all the help we could get (or perhaps a little of both); whichever it is, we are honored at this opportunity. As an added bonus, Terry will also be mentoring Ryan & Rachel Sutherland (our church planting partners in crime), and we couldn't be happier.

At the beginning of August, we actually got to spend some quality time in the city where we hope to plant our church once we're done with seminary - Missoula, MT! So what did we think? We absolutely loved it, and came away feeling this is definitely the place we want to live and labor.

Then just this last week, the church planting sub-committee of our presbytery voted to approve us for this work. Assuming the full comittee confirms this recommendation when it meets in a few weeks, we will have completed the last major step in the approval process.

So what does all this mean? Well, at this point it looks all systems are go to proceed with a church plant in Missoula next year - and that's very exciting for us, not only to sense God's leading within, but also to see that confirmed by the churches around us.

As we move into the fall, keep your eyes peeled for further developments as we begin to move forward with what comes next (here's a hint - there's another blog site in the works, and we are going to be very interested in your feedback!)

Fortunately, the summer wasn't all work and ministry - we also had a lot of time just to get out and relax. We did some hiking, caught a lot of fish, drove through Glacier Park, went to my sister's wedding, celebrated Rebekah's birthday - LOT's of stuff! And since we captured all of this stuff in digital photos, it's all there for you to see over on the photoblog (please check out the recent improvements we've made there - all the posts are archived daily now, so you won't have a ton of photos loading at once; plus there's a handy new index to easily find your way around).

At any rate, that's our summer in a nutshell, along with a glimpse of what lies ahead too. We appreciate all the friends we reconnected with this summer, and this fall we're looking forward reconnecting with those of you back here in Philly. If you find yourself in our neck of the woods, please don't hesitate to give us a call and invite yourself over.

Looking forward to hearing from all of you...